Metroid Ðread

@“chazumaru”#p50974 @“chazumaru”#p51982

Continuing on the seemingly inexhaustible topic of cool animations and neat visual details found in the game.

https://youtu.be/ZgNTZEM_NVY

On the broader topic of the game’s merits and misses discussed above, a big chunk of Super Metroid’s cultural hold over the franchise is related to how important that game has remained within the speedrunning community, so I think we’ll get a better grip of Metroid Dread’s relevance depending on how long it keeps that niche interested. For instance, it will be a red flag if the game is not at next year’s AGDQ.

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It’s got this opening expository infodump that is neither interesting to read for newcomers nor illuminating for fans. From the very start of the experience it feels like something’s off.

the last time i played super metroid, i fired it up (either on switch or snes classic) and i must have made a save file but not actually played it, coz it dropped me right into the space station section with no text crawl. it was cool! i finished that playthrough and, without samus' monologuing at the start, it's a story told solely through the environments and player actions. it made the atmosphere that much richer, somehow. iirc samus doesn't say anything over text or voiceover in metroid prime, which commits to the sense of isolation more than basically any other metroid.

during dread, i felt a lot of the same problems people have acknowledged here - the lack of really distinct environments, no real soundtrack, the emmi jank - but i enjoyed the good parts too much to be a full-on Dread Disliker. the emmi stuff in particular reminded me of stuff like dark souls, where eventually overcoming the apparent unfairness is really thrilling, even if it isn't _actually_ that unfair.

i wish someone like team ninja were allowed another go at fully re-genre-ing metroid. maybe a kind of fast action soulslike. bayonetta x bloodborne x space?

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@“JoJoestar”#p54171 they do this thing where the game doesn’t show what’s inside the walls and level geometry and the screen ends up being like 60% black 90% of the time

yeah I didn't like this one bit!

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@“JoJoestar”#p54171 The story was mostly trashy pulp (which has always been the case with this franchise imo)

I must (sort of) disagree here, having just played Fusion again yesterday.* Fusion's storytelling language is definitely pulp and definitely trash in the Pauline Kael sense of the word, but I have to argue that it's more dignified than the dumpster sludge that Dread's narrative digs down into. Agree with exodus's expo-dump gripes, every piece of written text in the game goes in one eye and out the other, they pull "Any objections, Lady?" out of the dusty old closet within the first two minutes of the game, and the Chozo names are wicked dumb. On that last point:

"Quiet Robe"??? "Raven Beak"??????

  • 1. These really do sound like names you'd find in a paperback from the '50s (referring to people you know those authors had no business writing about)
  • 2. All the location names, species names, etc etc in Dread and across the series are not derived from Real Earth English. Even if the alien place names mean something literal in an alien language, translation convention says you don't just translate that into English. We call it the Champs-Elysées, not Elysian Fields Avenue; Tōkyō, not the Eastern Capital.
    [size=5](we do call him Suda51 but that's a name he gave himself....)[/size]
  • 3. OK, OK, instead of following convention and simply transliterating their Chozo names into English--or maybe they only speak [sign language](https://www.metroidwiki.org/wiki/Luminoth_Language) (which the Chozo do not) which can't be transliterated† and English names must be invented for them--why "raven"? A colloquialism for a medium-to-large bird native to Earth's northern hemisphere. What word in the Chozo language could possibly correspond to something so specifically Earthen? Furthermore the Chozo _are_ birds, yes, but would they really have names describing their _birdness_ if they evolved on a planet separate from any of the other species native to Earth? Might they sooner refer to themselves by a more general term for "being"? Ditto "beak" vs "mouth." I'm trying to have my cake and eat it by calling this proposed naming convention ridiculous because it is obviously rooted in human perspective and then demanding it be judged according to human standards of naming, and I'm full of hot air here but MAN I dunno it just rubs me the wrong way
  • ALL OF THAT SAID, I still [liked Dread](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/962-metroid-dread/187), not trying to be a hater

    *weird coincidence @"antillese"#59, I didn't see your post until afterward

    †although the Luminoth language can, 1:1 with the English alphabet

    Hadn't played it in 6 or 7 years so I was surprised at how well I remembered the critical path

    [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/RmobNSy.png]
    ||[upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/O1b0fD0.png]||

    I finally played it. Played all day for two days in a row. Beat it with 50% items and 6:03 on the clock.

    Funny how there actually was a Rastasuit with an Iriebeam at the end... It really is metroid Dreadloc!

    So here's my review thesis: It **_would_** be the best Metroid game ever if it was made by the original creators at R&D1.

    Lots of wish fulfillment here. I always wanted more Chozo stuff, the new dash cements my theory that Chozo are basically ALIEN SOLDIER. The rastasuit at the end was cool.

    Sometimes, the writing was slightly stoopid, and other times, it was cool in a fanfic kind of way. ​There's a couple times they spelled things out too much and it seemed dumb. For example, in Metroid Fusion, you unlock a gate, and upon returning to earlier areas, notice there are now different X creatures there where before there may not have been any, and you realize that as you progress and unlock gates, you're allowing the X to spread. In Dread, I saw this coming, of course, when I entered an area with X, so it felt very dumb when they had a cutscene showing the stupid gummy bears flying away afterwards. It would have been so much cooler without the cut scene, because walking forward two steps there are X infesting the railcar area.
    ​Having Samus speak Chozo was dope. The location of Kraid's chamber was dope. I wonder how many of these ideas were from way back when the original Metroid Project Dread began development in 2004 while R&D1 was still at it's peak performance, having made Zero Mission, and how many were from mercury. Reading the credits, it seems like 90% mercury work, with three Japanese people consulting.

    The music and sound effects were also quite good through each area, exceptional in fact. (the ending music didn't do it for me like it usually would though.)

    What really matters though, is that speeding around traversing areas and blasting stuff felt really good. I played nonstop the past two days. I won't replay it, that'd be giving it too much credit, but the one playthrough was quite enjoyable.

    Also I agree with exodus, Adam's voice didn't make sense to me. It's the future, yet, in the present year 2022, we have AI that sounds indiscernible from real speech. I doubt samus would prefer the drone over a pleasant gentleman guiding her as a buddy.
    That's an example of the writing feeling like it came from total nerdo dweebs. Sometimes cool, sometimes more than slightly stoopid. This must be how fans of Star Wars feel, wishing their beloved childrens story would be elevated to a higher quality, and while sometimes it's pretty cool and dark and better, it never hits the mark of good, smart sci fi. The R&D1 games had more restraint. The Chozo were awesome, and I always wanted more. The way they did evil chozo and tribes and society and stuff just feels like a Star Wars move, for better or worse.

    Also: what the heck this raven beak mean when he said he can now clone samus?? How??

    edit: Final thing, I've seen a lot of people say they're burnt out on ""metroidvanias"" due to market saturation. Well, I always loved Metroid, Castlevania, Wario Land, Cave Story (played in 2006) etc. but as this huge wave of ""metroidvanias"" hit, I didn't feel any need to play any of them, because none of them spoke to me. Guacamelee, Hollow Knight, whatever, none of it was really for me, so I never got burnt out, just side eyed all these releases. I can count on one hand how many Indie games I've played through. I am only interested in indies that provide a new experience, not a lesser version of something I have or can experience on older hardware. So I feel as though I'm judging Dread as the 20 year wait for a Metroid game that it was... Aside for 3DS Samus Returns.

    The Chozo DNA stuff, two tribes, and one of them having metroid controlling capabilities in their genome, that‘s some stupid midi-chlorean stuff, no one asked for that. it’s ret-conning stuff that was just cool before. now it's because she has midi-chloreans.

    We'll find out soon, but I really hope Rookie Mode applies to existing save files. I have beaten every Metroid since the first, and while I am glad Dread tried its own things, I dropped it at a late boss because I had to accept that punishing difficulty in the form factor of what is nearly a boss rush is not something I want from a Metroid game at all. But I would like to see it through out of curiosity without a ton of work and frustration.

    Boss Rush Mode, though? The game is already a boss rush, INNIT

    UPDATE: Aaaaaaaaand, you cannot apply Rookie Mode to an existing save -- you have to start a new game. Not a great update for what I reckon are thousands of people who put significant hours into the game before giving up. Would love to see Steam-like completion rate data for this game. For me, it's going into the archived freezer until the imaginary time when I have 10 hours to just rotely repeat what I just dang did

    I just had a dream that in itself could be its own nausicaa/kaiba/made in abyss/ cave story/dragons heaven style sci fi anime set on a space station that’s been abandoned for 1000 years. But a big part of it was being chased by mechs which are controlled by AI of researchers that have been dead for 1000 years.

    I feel like the EMMI robots could have had something like this, each one’s AI being based on a federation researcher, like ADAM. And maybe instead of the ninth hour “chozo are still alive” plot twist of dread they could have pulled a twist on the classic Metroid formula by having these robots you are hunting and being hunted by have the souls of said chozo or federation comrades in them the entire time.

    Putting my chips firmly on the side of “Metroid Dread is a good game and a good Metroid game.” Full disclosure though- I am a mark. I can‘t get enough speed boosters and ice missiles. I had a great time with the game, especially all the little shinespark puzzles. The last boss was a grand time too, although I wish she got to keep the >!Green suit. It’s a very evocative design. Very toku, like this thread was saying. !<

    It was not without it's flaws, and I do think the game deserved more on the art direction side for sure. Way too many blacked-out areas on screen.

    @“Creekgrin”#p57974

    Similar to how I feel, I decided beforehand I was gonna enjoy the game, and I haven’t had a chance to burn out like the vocal majority of gamers, since I haven’t been touching many of these indie troidos.

    What you said reminds me how back in the early days of Facebook when you’d just input text tags of things you like in a big box, my friend Toby and I had our boxes filled with stuff like “charge beam” “wave beam” “ice missles” lol.

    I believe in judging the tree by the fruit it bares, and I had a good time playing Dread. I can recognize it’s flaws and maybe not even consider it for my personal Metroid head canon, and still express how interesting and entertaining it all was! The green suit was dope as heck even if Samus screaming was highly disturbing on purpose in a way that I don’t think fits the Metroid subtle mythos at all. I also think they could have let us fight a final boss and run around with the green suit… a la Fusion. I think that’s what they intended at some point… just having it in a cutscene… well maybe they intend to use it for another sequel, or maybe it will appear in Prime 4, again a La Fusion/ Prime 1.

    Anyways what is Toku?? :crazy_face:

    @“treefroggy”#p57989 Tokusatsu, like Kamen-Rider adjacent. Japanese masked super-hero bugmen, like this:

    [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/FmvD47i.jpeg]


    @“Creekgrin”#p57997 oh yeah Kamen Rider. Sure! Usually that kind of backwards facing Japanese inspiration is what I feel is lacking from this studio, but the green suit was pretty brilliant in every sense of the world, so I could certainly see the comparison. Something that I feel has defined the Switch’s AAA I’m house exclusives has been dipping back into 90’s design, like Link’s Awakening, Mario Odyssey, Splatoon did. The green suit’s color choices were loudern’ heck!

    I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far. The only Metroid game I’ve played before is Prime 1 but I never finished it because I’m cack-handed and found it really hard. Also struggling with the difficulty in Dread but the most important thing about it is that it’s done big numbers so we’ll get more Metroid.

    Bumping this old thread to say that my slight guilt from pirating Metroid Dread is alleviated because it became the top selling Metroid game of all time anyway.

    Hey!! I always avoided this ðread because I thought it was about Metroid Dread specifically and my eyes kept skimming over the linguistics pun or whatever you‘d call it (that’s a pun right?).

    I wanted to avoid Dread spoilers. Now I'm less interested in playing it. I realized Echoes was the last one in the series that I enjoyed (have not played Pinball or enough of Hunters). Look at what we've seen since 2007:

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    Corruption: I don‘t remember much from this game except that the art direction is brighter and less moody (owing, I think, to Android Jones’ departure from the then-trilogy) and also there‘s voice acting. NPCs are now giving Samus orders and it’s not fun.

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    ***Trilogy***: obvious idea but I already liked the way the first two play on Cube, same as my hardheaded stance on RE4 Wii.

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    ***Other M***: heard it sucked, specifically that it was just straight up sexist (how sexist do you gotta be to make people notice in a series that rewards the player with a pinup if you play really well? ) and disempowered Samus in the eyes of series fans. Not interested in ever giving this a chance except to laugh at it with someone while drinking.

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    ***Federation Forces***: heard it was trash on the Jimquisition. Pass, got better things to do (like write this post which is not itself productive procrastination!!!!)

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    ***Samus Returns***: I tried to play this but I just wasn't into it. Played a big chunk of AM2R afterward and only for technical reasons didn't finish it. Sorry MS but I don't care about parrying, it felt like a halfhearted nod toward Dark Souls and it slows things down.

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    ***Dread***: if Dread is more of that then yawn

  • I loved the first two Prime games and I love Fusion. I played Zero Mission early this year and had a great time and I mean to go back to AM2R and finish that too. Yeah yeah I like Super Metroid a whole lot, and it's the first game in the series I ever completed. The first two games feel nearly unplayable to me, sorry to any diehard fans of them.

    For some reason I'm still looking forward to Prime 4. I don't know why. Retro are being asked to go back to a series they haven't touched in a decade and a half after doing a reverse-Naughty Dog, without what was one of the main draws for me in Prime 1 and Echoes: [this former concept artist](https://twitter.com/android_jones), who was so put off by working on those games that he quit the gaming industry (and who has since gotten into NFTs, RIP).

    I wonder if Nintendo just doesn't know how to support and nurture its space opera franchises, namely this one and Star Fox. There are Nintendo series that confidently balance being a fun welcoming toy made by a former toy-maker, and having a narrative with characters and lore and a world that it's trying te sell you on. Splatoon does this! Zelda sometimes does this, or at least succeeds at one of the two (*I* think, ymmv). I don't have confidence it (Prime 4) will grab me, but I gotta follow and see for myself. Maybe some upheaval will happen and it will be good.

    I will get caught up on this thread in due time!!

    If you love Fusion and like Zero Mission then you should definitely play Dread, even if you didn't like the 3DS game.

    @“connrrr”#p83998 There is a free demo of Metroid Dread on the game’s eShop page if you want to try it without regret.

    All right I'll give it a shot

    I love Zero Mission and liked Dread enough. I found Dread‘s level and boss design really terrible at parts and the QTEs absolutely pointless and infuriating, but it feels great to move around and the story is good though. Also I love the EMMIs, they’re cute.

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    @“connrrr”#p83998 I love Fusion.

    If you haven't even given Dread a shot, you owe it to yourself to at least try it... After you finish the others you said you still need to finish. In other words, let it be your last Metroid game, when you thirst for more. I had played every metroid to death by the time dread came out, and unlike everyone else who blindly gobbled up every last indie metroidvania until they burnt themselves out, I played none of them, so I was ready for Dread. I hacked my switch to play it through once for free, and it was worth it.